The Holy Grail: India's Quest for Universal Elementary Education, (Hardcover)

From being a country that accounted for a third of the world's out-of-school children, India has now brought down that statistic to a minuscule 0.3 per cent. Instrumental in bringing about this change has been educational policy-making. This volume is a rare peek into the internal workings of the education ministry and development agencies through the eyes of a bureaucrat who saw from close quarters how educational policy is formulated.

The author locates the developments in the education sector within larger socio-political and global contexts. The book unravels the relations between Central and state governments in a federal polity and describes educational developments at the state, national, and international levels. It traces changing trends in developmental cooperation, as well as the functioning of bilateral, regional, and multilateral organizations like the World Bank. Using theoretical concepts of decision-making, negotiation theory, and international relations, this book helps open the 'black-box' of policy-making in India.